


A&A Convos: If I Could Take It Back

by edwardbraelinvonhaus



Series: A&A Convos [2]
Category: VH - A Harry Potter Roleplay Site
Genre: Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 12:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4479971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edwardbraelinvonhaus/pseuds/edwardbraelinvonhaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Person A has the opportunity to go back to their younger years at Hogwarts. What would they change if they could? (could also just be a discussion between Person A & Person B) Are there consequences?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A&A Convos: If I Could Take It Back

**Prompt: Person A has the opportunity to go back to their younger years at Hogwarts. What would they change if they could? (could also just be a discussion between Person A & Person B) Are there consequences?**

 

During the holidays, Aurora was usually jovial, especially when she was in the company of her family. However, there were times when her mood took a dive, weighed down by memories that lingered, stories that had been shared, and blanks that were missing.

 

Everyone was sitting at Kathryn’s dinner table, and it was a _large_ table barely big enough to accommodate all of the adults in the family. Everyone was sitting shoulder to shoulder at the table, while the children had a table of their own. It made them feel like adults, having their own table. Sunday dinner was always a joyous occasion at Kathryn’s. Everyone lived for it and the sense of togetherness could sometimes be overwhelming, especially during the holidays.

 

Today, though… Aura wasn’t jovial. In fact, she looked quite pensive, something her husband had picked up on the moment she had woken up that morning. It was also something her cousin had picked up on, too. When dinner was drawing to a close, Aurora wiped a napkin across her lips and took a deep breath. She looked at her husband, and his hand snuck into her own under the table, and he gave her a smile that filled her up with warmth.

 

But in that moment, it wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him, “but I have to go.”

 

With that, she rose gracefully, and Spike looked up at her. “Do you want me to come with?” he asked quietly, but already, eyes were on them.

 

“No, babe,” she answered, fingers carding through the hair at the back of his head. “I’ll be back in an hour. Maybe two.”

 

“Leaving so soon, Squirt?” Alex inquired, an amused eyebrow raised.

 

Aurora forced a smile towards her cousin, and a look of apology to everyone at the table. “Sorry to dine and dash. There’s just… somewhere I need to be right now.” She turned to Spike, and quietly asked him to take care of her plate. With nothing more than his promise and her wand, she headed for the door.

 

\-------------------------

 

There was snow on the ground, crunching under her feet as she walked through the dark graveyard, leaving behind her footprints in the empty canvas, the perfect white blanket that covered the whole city. She visited her father’s grave, dusted the snow off his tombstone and spent a couple of minutes with him, but he was not the reason why she was there. Still, she had to visit his grave, tell him she missed him every second of every day.

 

She moved on, and ten minutes later, she found herself standing before another grave. She shoved the snow off of it, and crouched down to stare at the letters that marked the place where her friend was resting. Her fingers started to trail over the letters, and she swallowed thickly.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “If I could take back that day… those weeks… I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

 

“If you did that, who knows what would have happened?” came a voice from behind her. It startled her. She turned her head to the left, hand curled around the hilt of her wand and saw that Alex had touched down and her broomstick was left to hover there. “Figured you’d be here.” When Aurora said nothing, Alex side and came up alongside her to look at the tombstone. No one could ever say they didn’t know each other and what made them tick. “I’ll never forget this day,” she murmured. “Its the day they found you and… I didn’t even know it.”

 

It was the first time Aurora had ever heard Alex speak about her own guilt in some way. “I wish I could remember this day, and forget the ones leading up to it.”

 

Silence settled between them and Alex kept her hands in her pockets for warmth. Eventually, thoughts were just itching to get out. “I don’t understand why you feel guilty about this, Squirt.” Alex had long ago deduced that this was more than just a simple case of survivors guilt.

 

“I’ve been having dreams,” Aura said, sinking to her knees to be level with Azraele’s name and the cold stabbed at her. Alex knew her cousin was plagued with nightmares, but they came and went.

 

“Nightmares?”

 

“Nightmares,” Aurora nodded. “I had a chance to change it all. I stopped Azraele from dying.” Granted the image in her head was one composed from the details that she had managed to acquire of that tragic day. The body of her friend found next to her with a bouquet of white roses upon it while Aurora had been left for dead, thought of no better than the dirt she had been laying upon. Her imagination filled in the blanks. “When we were rescued… I found out that… you died on the lawn the day I was taken. This… this was _your_ grave, Alex. And… I knew… this wasn’t right. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t real.”

 

Her chest heaved under the pressure of the recollection of her dream. Emotions overwhelming her at the mere possibility of Alex not standing next to her ever again. Alex knelt down, pulling her hand from her pocket and wrapping it around Aura’s shoulder.

 

“And I tell her that I wish I could take it back, change what happened… _every time I come here_.... I mean, am I not supposed to? God, I don’t even know if I would change it if I could… not if it meant…” she looked up at Alex, tears welled in her eyes as honesty oozed from her, and she came to realize that her ritual of standing at Azraele’s grave was one comprised of lies. “Not if it meant I’d lose you instead.” She sagged against her cousin, feeling utterly boneless and like the wind was just kicked out of her. “I know that makes me a horrible person… and I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that.”

 

“If you’re a horrible person, Squirt, then I’m a horrible person, too.” At that, Aurora almost whimpered because that wasn’t something she meant. She could never consider her cousin to be a horrible person, no matter the circumstances.

 

“Never.”

 

“Then never you, either.” Alex squeezed her arm around her cousin. “Aura, what you’re feeling, it’s human, and it’s okay. If it had happened any other way, you might not be here right now, your children might not be here right now… and I thank whomever is listening up there that it didn’t happen another way where there could have been worse consequences. So, please… _please_ … stop wishing it did, because _I_ don’t know what to do with _that_.”

  
**End-ish**.


End file.
